Peter Jackson’s ‘The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies’

I know I’m in the minority here, but I could never get behind the man as a sex symbol and have snickered over the moniker (born, I suspect, on this side of the pond) “Benedict Cabbagepatch.” So I’m not surprised that my favorite Cumberbatch role is the voice of the dragon Smaug in Peter Jackson’s three-film adaptation of J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit.

I’ve read the book twice. The first time, it was because a high-school boyfriend loved it, and the second time was when the three Hobbit films were announced in the wake of Jackson’s Lord of the Rings. I wanted to find out if the slim original novel was as boring as I remembered (yes). How was Jackson possibly going to make another eight or nine hours of movie out of that thing? About a third of it, as I recall, are these poems and songs that go on and on for pages.

Back then, Smaug just struck me as an insufferable riddler, far more loquacious than any dragon had any right to be. But Cumberbatch’s stentorian diction and the second Hobbit film’s astonishing visuals gave me the shivers. Best movie dragon ever.

What about nation-building?

Even though the second movie in Jackson’s series is subtitled The Desolation of Smaug, the filmmakers save the actual desolation for the opening sequence of the third film, The Battle of the Five Armies, when Smaug kicks things off by personally roasting a cold and grubby floating town (perhaps notable as the most racially diverse city in Middle Earth, with at least one or two black or Asian residents among the usual hordes of dirt-smeared white people). I enjoyed watching Smaug so much that I was sorry when the handsome lake-dweller Bard shot him down, and sorrier still when the dragon’s plummeting body killed the hilariously grasping and inept master of the town, played by Stephen Fry.

What happens next? Well, even for someone who flogged herself through the original novel twice (and got halfway through The Two Towers before throwing in the towel), it’s hard to say. The dragon dies, and because he’s richer than Mitt Romney and Hillary Clinton combined, everyone in Middle Earth, including humans, dwarves, elves, and orcs, saddles up to fight over Smaug’s newly vacated mountain (dragon guano, anybody?).

Is it all meant as a cautionary tale about the unexpected consequences of a power vacuum? Sure, Saddam Hussein and Muammar Gaddafi were bad, but the world hasn’t exactly gotten more peaceful since they were vanquished. From what I can tell, Smaug, besides stealing the dwarves’ mountain, which I grant you was a crappy move (what, is he going to spend all that gold on mascara, Ugg boots, or maybe some Ray-Bans at the local mall?), wasn’t causing anyone any grief by holing up in there. The elves prissed their way around the surrounding woods, spearing the giant spiders whenever they got out of hand; the dwarves stayed home and grew their beards; and the humans poled through town with icy boatloads of fish and raised smudgy, cherubic children. Then somebody shoots Smaug down, and suddenly it’s all-out war, not at all enlivened by an utterly humorless Orlando Bloom as the elf Legolas, whom I can’t remember being in the original Hobbit at all.

Count the animals

After ponying up for the final installment of The Hobbit last weekend, I can only imagine the brainstorming between screenwriter/producers Fran Walsh, Philippa Boyens, and Peter Jackson, and additional screenwriter Guillermo del Toro (of critter-full Hellboy and Pan’s Labyrinth fame).

Screenwriter/producers: Do you think anyone’s going to wonder what the dwarves are living on once they hole up in the mountain? It’s not like there’s any canned food or refrigerators in Middle Earth, and Smaug’s been in there awhile.

Del Toro: I’m tired of horses. Hey, how many fantastical animals do you think the characters could ride into battle?

Screenwriter/producers: I’m sure we could come up with some. So what about all those songs in the novel? We gotta fill like eight hours, but we don’t need the songs, right? Is Orlando Bloom available?

Del Toro: What about a giant elk? Could they ride, like, a huge elk with a rack like three meters across, and then in battle it could scoop orcs up on its horns so the king elf can behead them?

Screenwriters/producers: OK, fine. What do you think about that whole thing where the book’s protagonist hits his head and passes out and misses the climactic battle? Since Martin Freeman is really the only one carrying any emotional realism here, should we give Bilbo more of an active role, or do we defer to Tolkien on this?

Del Toro: And what about giant hogs? The dwarves could ride these massive pigs that are also really, really fast.

Screenwriters/producers: Yeah, pigs, sure. Do you think it’s important for people to have some idea of which dwarves are which after two films? I feel like someone who’s read the book a few times will be able to piece out the names and faces of like four or five of the 13 dwarves who are central to the plot. That’s enough, right?

Del Toro: What do you guys think of bats? Massive evil war-bats that can carry elves through the air?

Screenwriters/producers: Sure, bats are in the budget. Now what about this Gandalf thing? Ian McKellen is great, and he’s had so many pivotal moments in the whole saga so far. Do we need him in the action on this, or should we just let him get real grimy and kind of fade into the background?

Del Toro: Hey, I got it! What about colossal, snarling hyenas? The orcs can ride those. And trolls! Someone could ride a troll and turn it into a gigantic catapult machine.

Screenwriters/producers: Sure, Guillermo. This’ll definitely gross $804,000,000 worldwide.